User blog:Galleigo/Public Image
It'd been ██ years since its founding in 19██ and the Agency was booming... underground. That was to be expected. The public was thankfully distracted with all the bigger space agencies. Some were the public faces of the Agency, but most were national agencies. The United States and its NASA'd become very popular with the public after their success in the Constellation programme, and the New USSR also gained much publicity thanks to its implementation of what the public nicknamed the "space force". Really, the only face of the Agency shown to the public was a relatively small office in A██████. Most didn't even know the Agency existed. At least, those not working for governments or holding high positions in a few national space agencies. The Agency publicly owned a small launchpad, and it'd act as if it's something unique for it to launch a sounding rocket. Only one of their launches was meant to be an orbital rocket, and it was designed to fail. Behind the scenes, dozens of extraplanetary missions were launched in those years, men had landed on Mars and it'd even participated in some colonisation. And, as only eleven men would know at the time, ten deadly superweapons had been designed, with almost scary capabilities. But the masquerade was not easy to keep up. Several times it'd nearly been broken, but all saved thanks to a specialised neurotoxin. Still, it was expensive. Even with government funding from a few nations, they too wanted to support their own space programmes. The financial situation was getting quite dire in 20██, so there was an idea: break the masquerade intentionally. It was met with resistance, but eventually many agreed to something more of a middle ground. The Agency would have to fake sudden rapid expansion - a believable amount - and rise to become an important entity in the world. Not "we're saving humanity" level, maybe something more like that company █████X back in the early 21st century. So the plan began. It started with another nearly successful orbital rocket launch. Then a new figurehead was appointed as the purported leader. Then it continued with regular orbital launches. Then they landed on the Moon. Then they sent a probe to Charon. Then they landed on Mars. They'd been able to do it for so long, but in the shadows. Finally, funding would improve because now the Agency could sell its services. Still, much was swept under the rug. The knowledge of each and every one of the 200 Protocols would never reach the public. The importance of public image in maintaining the flow of money to expand the Agency was apparent. It'd briefly given up on this and quite honestly, it nearly collapsed. To save itself, it clearly had to hype the public up about the Agency. So began the construction of the CRYPT; the new direction the Agency would have to go in to reduce costs while maintaining a good public image would be to market itself as doing things cheaply and reliably. The CRYPT was, in fact, a Space Shuttle... just "very unorthodox" - so says W██████ R█████████. The CRYPT was a success. It became very popular among smaller companies looking to put a satellite or two in space. But there was still a masquerade; a truth under the falsehood of a "major agency". That truth would still stay the knowledge of world leaders and high-ranking space agency officials alike. W██████ R█████████ remarked that it was not unlike a stereotypical conspiracy theory. The Agency has not strayed from its original goal. As a branch of the F█████████, it was to stay that way. And it did. The years came and went without a hitch. Though there was an illusion put up by the Agency as its mask, shown openly to the world, less than 1% of humanity would ever know the Agency's true nature. Category:Blog posts